NAMIBIA ACCEPTS SAME-SEX UNIONS FORMED ABROAD WITH FOREIGN PARTNERS.

The Supreme Court of Namibia recognized same-sex unions between nationals and foreign partners on Tuesday, a historic decision in a nation where homosexuality is against the law.

The verdict overturns a High Court decision from the previous year that refused to recognize same-sex unions contracted outside of Namibia.

After the ministry of home affairs and immigration declined to issue permits to same-sex foreign spouses whom they had married outside of the country, two Namibian nationals sought redress from the courts.

Accordingly, the court determined that the Ministry’s policy of excluding spouses in legally consummated same-sex marriages, including the appellants, “violates both the interrelated rights to dignity and equality of the appellants.”

Together with Namibian native Johann Potgieter and his South African spouse, Matsobane Daniel Digashu, Annette Seiler, who is married to Anita Seiler-Lilles, brought the complaint.

Their marriages were consummated in South Africa and Germany, respectively.

The right of same-sex couples to marry, have children, and immigrate has been the subject of a flurry of legal proceedings in Namibia.

A rarely implemented sodomy legislation from 1927, which dates to Namibia’s time under South African control, makes homosexuality illegal in that country.

The only country in Africa that permits gay marriage is South Africa, whose liberal post-apartheid constitution legalized it in 2006.

The same supreme court reversed a lower court’s decision to grant citizenship to a gay couple’s four-year-old son who was born through surrogacy in neighboring South Africa in March of this year.